Armed

As told to Miriam Bodner by Yitzchok Achter

ONMonday, Isru Chag, I sat on the subway with a group of friends, headed to Manhattan. What struck me immediately was the cold and the silence. Or perhaps it was the tension? The passengers seemed frozen in place. The news of the war in Israel had stretched its hand across the ocean to hold us in its icy grip.

But that was precisely why I was sitting on the subway.

It was a mission, really. We were going to find Jews to put tefillin on. I sat back in my seat and wondered if the air had been this cold and icy in 1967. The Six Day War had begun in June, but surely the fear they felt must have made it as cold as it was now. As they dug trenches and organized troops, were their thoughts as wild as ours are now?